As a new member of the Marriott Rewards Program and newly minted Platinum, I have a question as I was looking at pricing for reward redemption.

When I pulled up a two week stay in Aruba, the room categories had either a per night cost, such as $80 per day or a certain amount of upgrade coupons per night for the different rooms. (What is an upgrade coupon and how do I get them?)

Also, if I am paying $80/night extra for a room, do I get credit for that stay? Just curious and greedy of course.

Is it possible to get a room without paying any money? This surprised me a little bit and just need some clarification.

Thanks in advance.

you will not receive stay credit for any redemption stays but you will receive points on incidentials charged to the room

I believe if you poke around you can find rates that don't have an additional dollar rate (typically the worse room). Try looking for garden/no view rooms and hope for an upgrade.

Some Marriott hotels will allow point based (i.e. certificate) or paid upgrades when staying on points. Beach hotels frequently do this. These types of upgrades are not normally suite upgrades but "view" upgrades (i.e. resort view, ocean view, ocean front, balcony, corner, etc.) Some of those upgrades may require more $ or more than one certificate. You can find out more information on them (including ordering them) at Marriott's website: Room Upgrade Information .

As daeus mentions, if the hotel has any "base" level rooms available for redemption, then you can reserve that room and as a Plat hope for a complementary upgrade. The problem here is that everyone is doing that same thing. Thus the base rooms can be quickly reserved leaving only the upgradable rooms as available. If that is the case with you, you might try contacting the hotel's GM and asking about them opening up a base level room for you. Depending on how crowded they anticipate being, the GM may do that for you and even go ahead and upgrade you to a nicer room right then and there. Just remember to not expect that to happen. They may very well be fairly well booked and require you to reserve an upgraded room using extra points or $s.

Thanks for clarifying and thanks for the link about upgrade information. It's all starting to make sense now. ^